Basketball: Radio remarks earn Monty reprimand

Pac-10 Conference commissioner Larry Scott announced that Cal coach Mike Montgomery has been reprimanded for comments he made about officiating during his postgame radio show after the Bears played Thursday, Feb. 10 at Washington and Saturday, Feb. 12 at Washington State.

During his visit to Roxie Bernstein and Todd McKim after the WSU game, Montgomery said, “I’m about ready to jump off the bridge on this officiating.”

Jeff Faraudo

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Geez, considering the mugging and literal KO of Crabbe, I think Monty was right on calling out the officials.

Bears

Someone needs to publicize how poor the Pac 10 officals are.
Monty is just doing his job. Standing up for his team and players.
The Pac 10 is working on fixing football refs, hoops needs to be next!

Dave

Braking news: Mike Montgomery hates officials…

Jan K Oski

What’s with Larry Scott dwelling on Cal? First, football, now Monty… I think I need to take my dog to do his thing on his office’s door step like I did during his predecessor’s years. Odorfic!

The Wisdom Cow

Just curious, did Monty blurt this out of no where, or had Roxy asked what Monty’s thoughts on the officiating were? Because, by all means, Larry, don’t let the coaches answer questions honestly to the press. That could lead to people knowing how horrible Pac 10 refs are.

Yoda

The Pac-10 has one crew at least that isn’t competent enough to ref a CYO game, and the rest seem unable to call a game in a consistent style from start to finish. They pretty much suck, which is more evident if you watch a Pac-10 game immediately after a Big East game.

Hey Dave, it’s “breaking.” If you’re going to be snarky, do it right.

H8sRed

Are beat writers prohibited from writing about bad officiating? Pac-10 officials are horribly inconsistent and arbitrary; yet I rarely even see even a mention that a call/non-call might have been questionable. Writers never come right out and say a call was bad, no matter how blatant.

With all of the close games Cal has lost this year, those bad calls are definitely a factor. Moving screens are my biggest pet peeve. Officials also seem to be more than reluctant to call fouls on the league’s superstars. (How many shooters push off the Cal defender before draining a jump shot?)

It would be nice if the writers would mention officiating lapses in their game coverage. Then, maybe, the league might take notice.

Jeff Faraudo

H8sRed:

Beat writers are not prohibited from commenting on officiating, but it is our job to remain impartial, which necessarily means that my view may be different than yours or that of the coach, who is substantially invested in this.

Are there bad calls? All the time. Basketball is THE most difficult sport to officiate because there is contact constantly and you cannot call everything (at Monty said after the Washington game). I’ll be honest: I do not think the officiating in the Pac-10 is markedly worse (or different) this season than ever. Games are called differently here than, say, in the Big East. That’s always been the case.

Bottom line: I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of games I’ve covered (out of hundreds) where officiating truly has dictated the outcome. Things tend to even out over the course of a game, certainly over the course of a season.

I have written about “bad” calls a few times (Cal at UCLA a couple years ago comes to mind), but must be careful to do so without taking sides (one way or the other), rather simply comment on what appeared to happen (especially if a TV replay is available) and how those involved responded to it. It’s just not our job to lose our minds over the refs. Certainly fans and coaches are within their rights doing so.

Totally agree with you, Jeff.
Would not want to be a basketball ref!!! Hardest game to ref!!!

As a coach, I would tell my players that reffing hoops sucks and that they are going to make a million mistakes per game, and that you just have to expect that going into it. Otherwise, the players will lose their heads like the fans do, and that’s when they will start playing like crap.